


And Heaven Too

by InterNutter



Category: Church (Short Film 2019)
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Mild Gore, Sexism, Shitty Institutional Environment, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-26
Updated: 2019-12-02
Packaged: 2020-10-28 10:07:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 16,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20776796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InterNutter/pseuds/InterNutter
Summary: Subscribed as I am to Toasty's Patreon, I get sneak peeks of her next video, which is to Florence and the Machine's _All This and Heaven Too_. Since I love Toasty's work and obsess over it like a loon, I fictionalise the video to my best ability.





	1. From Forty Seconds

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Toasty owns the animatics, other people own the music, and I claim neither as my own. I just like to play with ideas.

Sanga was four years old when she learned that she wasn’t excellent. A fancy man in a fancy robe had come into their creche-class and pronounced it to be ‘an excellent crop of boys’. Sanga, one of the three girls in her group, and already friendless said, “What about the girls?”

He had looked at her like she was a cat or a cow who had suddenly spoken to him. “You’ll make the next set of boys.  _ Some _ of you, at any rate.”

Faith and Charity smiled like little angels. Faith was a redhead and looked after her shining, copper tresses, just as Charity maintained her pale brown locks. Sanga, on the other hand, kept getting sticky stuff in the back of her head, so the nun-nurses regularly shaved her there. At least, they said, they knew she was free of lice. Her hair was dull, boring, brown so dark that it was almost black.

The fancy man ignored Sanga and lifted up Faith’s chin. “A rare flower in a field of weeds. You will make an excellent wife, and become an exalted mother.”

He said similar words to Charity, and passed Sanga by so he could stand in front of the room and talk about changes and the cycle of life and why it was so important to respect the rules of blah blah blah blah blah…

Sanga lost interest in him and his words, preferring to watch some ants about their business in a crack in the wall. They were kind of dull, too, but at least they were doing something. Sanga could only read the story in the pictures on his robe so many times and ants? You could never guess what  _ ants _ found. One time, she had watched them haul parts of a whole cockroach the size of her palm towards their secret nest. Legs, wings, head and all.

“SANGA! Pay attention, girl!”

The fancy man said, “That’s a girl? Unfortunate.”

The rest of the class laughed.

When they were allowed out to play, Faith and Charity monopolised the rag dolls as always, and started talking to each other about how their babies were the best, and making up imaginary husbands. Sanga avoided them, and tried to sneak off into the more distant corners of the yard where scraggly plants still eked out an existence.

This time, the wrestling boys didn’t notice her, and she was free to poke around in the hardy plants for interesting feathers, snail shells, fascinating rocks and of course her friends the ants.

There was a big thornbush that she could crawl into if she took her time, and its labyrinthine branches often held fearless finches that flitted about between the sharp spikes.

This time, they also held a big secret.

One of the big storms had blown off some parts of the fence, behind this bush. Sanga had suffered a fist to the face two days prior and welcomed a secret passage of any kind. Her brief fantasies of running away to a circus or finding a paladin to squire for or a magic castle or any such thing that  _ wasn’t _ the Church’s creche-class faded as she found a neglected courtyard.

There was a ghost of a garden here, with a rebellious apple tree struggling for survival and weeds dominating most of the space. Tall grasses grew between old flagstones and something that could have once been a wrought iron chair lay in a rusty tangle in amidst more thorns. One of the four walls had a bricked-up doorway, and another… had a low window with bars in the way.

_ There was something in there! _

Sanga was immediately curious. A secret garden that nobody knew about was one thing, but a secret garden  _ with someone or something else… _ That was  _ magic. _

It could be a kitten, or a puppy, or a goat, or a cow, or a prisoner! Yes! A prisoner who was also a prince who would take Sanga away to be a princess, just like in the storybooks! That would be the best.

She got down on all fours, lowering her head to see…

A demon!

He wasn’t the big scary one, the one they called Thunder Mountain. By comparison, he was tiny. A baby. Like her. He was scared and flinching away from the little windowsill he was perched on, so Sanga smiled.

“Hi there,” she said. “I won’t hurt you, it’s okay.”

The baby demon said, “Hra?”

With the utter fearlessness of the very young, she reached through the bars to touch its hair. “You feel like a kitten,” she said, having once coaxed one of the Church’s semi-feral strays into arms’ reach. One of the creche boys had killed it to make her cry. She couldn’t imagine a boy killing a  _ demon… _ They were tough. Thunder Mountain could kill half a platoon’s worth of murderers and criminals before lunchtime.

The baby demon purred, and reached out cautiously to touch her head.

He could have sliced her to ribbons, like Thunder Mountain sliced up bad people… but he must have known she wasn’t bad people.

“We’re friends now,” said Sanga. It was nice to have a friend. “I’m Sanga. Sanga. Can you say ‘Sanga’?”

He said, “Sankha.” Which was close enough. “N Ashivon tseh. Ashivon. Ash-ee-von.”

“Ashivon,” said Sanga, sure she was mucking it up somehow. “Hello, Ashivon.”

He was the first person in the whole world in all of Sanga’s memory who had reached out to her and  _ not _ hurt her. Sanga didn’t care he was a demon. He had to be special. Her special secret.

She would never tell anyone about this secret place.

* * *

Ashivon had been prepared to hate every fangless person in this horrible place. The country was too hot, and everything was horrible and he missed his parents and the only glimpse he had of nature was that outside of a very small window with thick bars. He couldn’t even hope to wriggle out of there, but he could watch the weeds wave and the sunshine pass and sometimes? Sometimes, there were birds.

He had frozen in place when he saw the fangless feet. What weird feet. No claws, and they walked on their  _ hocks. _ Gross.

This was a small one. A baby? Did the fangless even  _ have _ babies? Ashivon didn’t have time to wonder, because it was getting closer. The same kind of blunt, furless face, but there was a blotchy purple blemish on one side of its face.

Ashivon almost dove for the relative safety of the straw pile, but then the fangless smiled. He didn’t understand the words, but he understood the tone of voice, and craved the gentle touch when it touched him.

Emboldened, he reached out to touch it back.

He had thought they would all burn him like the last bare-handed touch on his flesh. This one didn’t hurt him when it touched her. It didn’t hurt him when he touched it.

This one had a name. Sahnkah. It was almost like the word ‘ribbon’, but not quite.

He learned a lot from Sahnkah. They exchanged words and drew pictures in the dirt and each one started to understand. She was a girl fangless person. They did have children, just none like Ashivon. Then a bell began to toll and Sahnkah scurried off.

Ashivon erased the pictures in the dirt.

So. This place wasn’t hell. It was just doing a remarkable imitation of it.

He waited by the window until the light drained out of the sky and the world turned grey and the mean people with light sticks and whips pulled him out of his perch for a bucket of… something that could be food. It was disgusting and Ashivon didn’t want to eat it, so one of them moved in a weird way and…

...and he was watching himself from the inside as his body ate the disgusting stuff as if he were an animal.

He hated the big ones. Once a week, they pushed him out into a big, sandy arena where they let him kill some big ones. It wasn’t easy, but being allowed to do it gave him some sense of control. This was not the day for killing. This was just another, dull and boring day.

Well. Except for Sahnkah.

After the fangless finished hurting him and made their escape from his cell, Ashivon hopped up onto the windowsill again. The sun had gone down and little creatures were scurrying around in the weeds. None came close to his little window, and none were Sahnkah.

He reluctantly huddled on the straw, missing his parents. Missing his family. Missing his home.  _ My name is Ashivon. I have a father and an uncle in my house near the mountains. I live in a village by the water and we would go fishing together. My father makes festival clothes and my uncle is a healer. My mother died trying to control a herd of frightened Thunderfeet. I am not the only one like me… _

If he dreamed, he didn’t remember it. Probably just as well because it felt like he had had nightmares.

This entire place was a nightmare.

It didn’t matter if he stayed on the floor or hopped up on the windowsill in the mornings. The fangless people still hurt him no matter what. The only difference was that they didn’t pull him down to fall on the floor. In that, staying on the ground was only marginally better. It was the only choice he seemed to have so far, so he used it.

_ When I get big enough to reach the ones with the sticks… _ he vowed.

The horrible stew they fed him didn’t taste any better when it was fresh, but the movements and the magic they had made him eat it anyway. The fangless hit him and he feigned a greater hurt than they gave and then they were gone. Ashivon cleaned himself with some of the water they left and hopped up to the windowsill.

Sahnkah came in a few hours, out of breath and marked with new scratches. She was real. She was really real and he hadn’t been dreaming her. She was kind and gentle and trying to learn his words just as hard as he was trying to learn hers.

If he could talk like the fangless people, maybe they’d stop hurting him. Maybe they’d tell him what they wanted. Maybe he could ask for what he wanted. Maybe…

Maybe things could get a little better.

Ashivon talked about his family, drawing pictures. Sahnkah talked about the things she liked. She didn’t have a family. She was a basket-child. Left like garbage on the steps of the Church, she said. By the Saint’s Mercy, she lived so she could learn and become a faithful child of grace. That’s what the grownups said. She was doing her best, but she couldn’t focus on anything. They were always yelling at her and no amount of swift canes to her calves did a thing to make her be not broken.

This was a terrible shock to Ashivon. Who held her when she had nightmares? Who told her stories to help her sleep? Who made her clothes? Who made her food? Who had passed her around as a baby for proper food and strength from the village? Who had she played pounce-tail with?

Sahnkah couldn’t even begin to understand the questions. She was taught not to have nightmares by the orphanage staff. People whose job it was to make sure children left there grew up to become faithful children of grace. If she was wrong, they beat her for it. Therefore, if Sanga had terrors in the night, she muffled herself with her blanket and prayed to the Saint. There was no-one to tell her stories, just a nun who sometimes came by and read stories of faith from a big book. They didn’t get to choose which ones they got, and those who failed to pay attention to the lessons in the story were made to stand out on the cold flagstones for an hour as punishment.

Sahnkah said she didn’t mind. She got to see the stars come out, and on really cold nights, she could make shapes with her own breath. It was like having magic, she said.

A bell tolled, and she jumped in fear. “You have to remember your other questions,” said Sahnkah. “I forget everything.”

She remembered that they beat her. She remembered that they punished her. She remembered cold nights watching the stars. She remembered nights on her own with no-one to comfort her when she was afraid. She remembered that she had no family who wanted her.

That was Ashivon’s biggest stumbling block. Every Intseh child was planned, wanted, and treasured. Part of the community literally from the day they hatched, passed between family members for nutrition and nurture both. The idea of one child being abandoned by all but the governing powers was completely alien. The knowledge that there were  _ twenty _ in Sahnkah’s group… and more groups than hers…

It would be horrifying to his family. It would cause a stampede of people to sweep up every last abandoned baby that these nightmare lands had to give. Even his father would want to sweep up Sahnkah and give her a far better home than the life she knew now.

He had noticed that she could keep on one topic when she played with the long grasses, bending them in her fingers. She might have a runaway mind. His friend Rohsivas had a runaway mind and the teachers made a small toy for his fingers to play with so his mind could keep on the subject at hand.

Ashivon pulled some long grasses he could reach, and wove them together into a little cord. Just big enough to fit around Sahnkah’s wrist. She should be able to hide it in her sleeve, and few would be able to spot it… but her fingers could twirl it and she could keep her mind slow enough to focus on her lessons.

It was something else to do than sit and wait and be beaten.

He waited, watching the sunshine move and the birds hop… until another bell heralded Sahnkah’s arrival. She had a new mark on her face that was swelling up as he watched.

None of his people would even think of hurting a child.

He told her of Rohsivas and his runaway mind, and gave her the little circle of woven grass. When she ran it around her wrist, she smiled and laughed that it worked. It worked! It worked and she could remember and it was wonderful and Ashivon was magic!

Unfortunately, the rest of her answers just made him sad for her.

* * *

Sanga found the slate and the chalk in the back of the storeroom she had been made to clean as penance, then feigned a stomach-ache to smuggle it out as far as her bush. After that, it was easy to bring it to Ashivon, and he could hide it in his straw from the mean people. The Saint said everyone should learn to read, and Ashivon was part of everyone, so Sanga decided to teach him.

After all, apples only happened in the tree in the courtyard for a handful of weeks at best. Learning to read made a person better for all of their lives. Ashivon wasn’t old enough to learn Intseh writing, he said, but he was as old as Sanga and that was  _ plenty _ old enough to learn Nital writing. So she taught him. How to make the shapes. How to pronounce them. How to spell his name the Nital way. How to write her name, too.

It was fun, being able to teach someone. He’d made her world better and she couldn’t do very much for him at all. That… that felt bad. It felt wrong.

So she did what she could and tried her best to plan for more. Sneaking foods out of the storerooms and kitchens. She got caught and flogged for trying to smuggle a whole blanket out to him, and she worried about him for the entire week that she was abed with fever from it. Would he forget her? Would he be gone forever when she came back?

She was so relieved to see him still there and waiting for her that she cried just to see him and hold his hand. They even touched faces through the bars. He had missed her too.

She taught him Nital, and reading, and smuggled him the broken books that were due to be burned anyway, so he could practice. Ashivon loved to read.

He outpaced her, eventually. Of course he did. Sanga was used to the idea that everyone else in the whole world was smarter than she could ever be. So instead of teaching, she tried to learn, even though only some of it stayed in her head.

It was one balmy afternoon, after one of the boys had bloodied her nose and she had gone to Ashivon to cry, that the boys found her secret.

Well. Two of them did. They were armed with sticks when Sanga only had her fists.

“You won’t play nice,” said one of them. Triumph.

Sanga remembered they had wanted to kiss her with their slobbery dirty boy mouths. She hadn’t wanted to and that was why he punched her. “I said I’m not playing,” she said. “Go away!”

The other boy, Might, raised his stick. “You play nice, you whoresget, or we’ll  _ make _ you.”

There was only so much courtyard to back away from them into, and worse, they could climb trees. Sanga didn’t want to risk catching lockjaw from hiding in the tangled wreck of the wrought iron furniture, but it was looking like lockjaw or two spittle-soaked filthy boys sucking her face and making her vomit… and the certainty that they’d beat her bloody for throwing up.

“Go away! I said I’m not playing!” She backed away anyway, fists ready to at least try and fend them off. The boys said that girls hit like soft bread rolls. “I don’t want to.”

“You’ll want to and you’ll like it, basket-girl.”

“You’re meant to. Get of a whore, gets to be a whore.”

“AM NOT! WILL NOT!”

That was the moment Ashivon roared. It was more of a growl, and his hands could only stir up the dirt by his little window, but it was enough.

Triumph and Might screamed and ran away like they were Faith and Charity running away from a gutter toad.

Sanga owed him everything… and all she could do was hold his hand or touch her face to his. So she vowed to do that for him more.

In fact, she was holding his hand when the nuns found her with him and took her far, far away.


	2. From One Minute

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ObInfo: The first bit here is made up entirely out of whole cloth and not in the finished clip. Please do not be disappointed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Toasty changed everything and the new snippet has given me IDEAS so look out for the new flood of Angst Juice, folks.

Sanga’s first solid memory was a whipping. She had asked one simple question of the Divine teacher, and didn’t understand why it was such a bad question. She had asked, “How can the Saint watch us all the time when she always has her eyes closed?” She was four.

They had strapped her to the correction harness and the Divine had whipped her with her Light. Twenty lashes, to teach her the ways of acceptance. After that, she had to limp down to the cellar complexes and report to the Master of Tasks for a penance.

He made her take a bucket of fresh flesh to the Tormentor.

It was dark, down there. Lit by sparse torches that seemed to spit and pop whenever she got too close. The bulk of the Tormentor was a terror she didn’t want to repeat, and the glow of his eyes in the darkness would haunt her nightmares for years. When he stood up, he eclipsed the sunlight from the tiny window near the ceiling.

There was a low growl, and the Tormentor knelt, letting the light back in, and put his arms behind his back like he was waiting to be bound. He was still huge. Taller than Sanga even hunched up like that. No wonder they called him Thunder Mountain.

He said, “Sit. Stay. Wait.”

Trembling with every muscle she had, Sanga pushed the bucket through the hatch, and ran away.

It was that encounter that had her not uttering a word for two years.

She was eight when her particular creche was taken to see the Arena for the first time. Thunder Mountain looked very tired, even though it was early in the day. Their teacher had a lot to say about how demons were drawn to the sinful, and craved the blood of the wicked. The sinners were allowed to defend themselves with the weapon they used for the most heinous sin - murder - and if they could defeat the demon, they would be granted the freedom to work their penance in the mines for the rest of their natural days.

Sanga wanted to say that that didn’t sound fair, but she had learned not to say such things. She wanted to ask how old Thunder Mountain was. She  _ really _ wanted to ask how they expected the old woman to defend herself with a knitting needle, but a faithful child of grace was seen and not heard, and especially not heard asking questions that should never be asked. A faithful child of grace was helpful and learned their prayers and followed the teachings of the Saint… which were self-contradictory and could be cherry-picked to mean anything you liked, but a  _ faithful _ child of grace didn’t mention that…

The woman in the arena was almost as old as Thunder Mountain, and they both moved like their legs didn’t want to carry them any more. She had the black diamond of a murderer on her chest and the kind of build that could snap in a stiff breeze. Thunder Mountain roared, claws flexing, and the old woman flinched in her place, shaking like a leaf on a branch in the wind.

Thunder Mountain stalked closer. He looked… he looked more like the prisoners in their cages. Just… waiting for the inevitable. Resigned to his fate. The crowd started chanting the word ‘blood’ in time with his footsteps and Sanga joined in. She did not want to be accused of  _ not _ being a faithful child of grace. The unfaithful, the heretics, the enemies of the Church, and the murderers all wound up in the arena. Facing the demon.

The old woman’s knitting needle wasn’t a good weapon, and the old woman wasn’t strong. When she desperately jabbed at Thunder Mountain, it didn’t even make an impact. The demon tore her open with one almost lazy swipe, and she fell.

The crowd screamed in delight, and Sanga made a noise, too. Lest she prove unfaithful.

They were taken away for lessons after the third murderer met their demise, and Sanga remembered very little of them. Her head was full of blood and unfair fights and questions she couldn’t ask.

Faith, babbling beside her, was telling Charity how brave and exciting the Handlers were, daring to be in the same space as such a huge demon. She was going on and on and  _ on _ about how she wanted to marry the younger handsome one with the swift fist and how strong her babies were going to be.

_ We’re eight years old, _ thought Sanga.  _ He’s a man of twenty-five. If he’s not married already, then there’s still no hope. _ Sanga didn’t destroy Faith’s daydreams. It was encouraged for young girls to dream about handsome young men. It was encouraged for young men to be interested in younger women… and Sanga could never figure out why. Men were brave and fought for the Divine and women were vessels of the Faith and made babies to become faithful children of grace. To work in the Church and be helpful to the masses was a lofty goal for orphans such as them, but to marry a Divine and bear his children… that was achievable.

Sanga was nine when she found Ashivon.

Their teacher caught her staring at the ants and sent her out with a paper and pencil to map the Greater Church complex, something that would take her most of a week if she wasn’t called back for any reason, as a penance. At least it wasn’t going into the dark to feed a monster.

She had found the Greater Courtyard with its stained glass image of the Saint. Some said it was a hundred feet high. Some said it would come to life to save the entire city-state in a time of great need and Sanga had  _ not _ asked any questions about how glass was supposed to protect against cannonballs. Beyond the Greater Courtyard were walkways and collonades, and beyond that were gardens and atriums. Beyond those were the outer buildings of the Church itself. Some had gardens between them. Some had paved areas. Some had alleys. Two had a space between them that was barely wide enough for a person to walk through, and a fenced-off area suffering from some significant neglect. Because the fence was broken, she went through to see what was on the other side.

It had once been a small courtyard. Perhaps someone had once come out here for sunshine and refreshments. There was a tangle of something that could have once been wrought iron furniture in a corner, and a defiant apple tree eking out an existence in amongst the dried-out weeds and tall grasses poking out between the remaining cobbles. The doorway was bricked up, now, and the only other feature in this space was a low window… with something alive inside.

The glowing eyes in the darkness did not belong to Thunder Mountain… it was a baby demon! Sanga, down on the ground now, spent an entire minute staring at the little creature. Compared to Thunder Mountain, this one looked so very, very harmless. He looked… scared.

“Hi…” she whispered, scooting a little closer. “My name’s Sanga.”

They said demons were drawn to sinful souls, and Sanga was relatively certain that she wasn’t sinful at the moment. Technically, she was still doing what she was told. The day was getting late and it was likely her teacher had forgotten about her, anyway. Therefore, her penance was over, and she was free.

He seemed ready to scoot off to the furthest corner, so Sanga stayed very still, like she did for the Church cats. Many of those semi-feral felines had learned not to trust children, and it took ages to convince them that she was a good one.

The beast inside said, “Hri t tseh?”

Thunder Mountain never talked like that. On the few occasions that he spoke, they were one word utterances that were echoes of Handler commands.

Demons could talk! They had their own words and everything. This was more interesting than boring old scripture lessons. Sanga smiled, and repeated his words. “Hri t tseh…”

Soon, he stopped being afraid. They got closer to each other and learned a few words of each other’s tongues. Who knew that demons could be friendly?

Sanga knew without a doubt that this was something nobody else in her world needed to know about.

* * *

Ashivon waited in the dark, staring out at the light. Sanga came every day, he knew this. Sometimes, she had food. Sometimes she had things. He had helped her runaway mind with a braided bracelet of grass for her fingers to twiddle with so her brain could get on with thinking. She couldn’t do anything about his captivity, but she could do something about the boredom that captivity held within it.

He smiled when she appeared, and enjoyed the slightly mangled roll that she managed to smuggle out to him. They had enough words to talk to each other about things. Like… how the fangless ones viewed Intseh as demons. They wanted him to kill sinners. Sanga didn’t see how it was fair, he could easily defeat a grown adult, even one with a proper weapon. She even pointed out that he could tear open her veins and nobody would even miss her.

This horrified Ashivon. Sanga was the only one amongst the fangless who had any kind of decency or kindness in them. The rest of them were, as far as Ashivon was concerned, a loss. The rest of them could vanish in a puff of smoke and, after Sanga managed to let him loose, they would be all the happier for it.

As proof, he pointed out whatever injury she happened to have that week. Rare indeed was a day without her sporting some bruise, scrape, or scar. She was always wounded and there was always an initial story about how it was all her fault. She’d made them angry. She’d started the trouble. She’d said or done the wrong thing. She’d been stupid.

Of course, it didn’t take long to find the real story. They had set out to be angry. They had decided to make trouble. Sanga’s actions were merely peripheral to her being a target. But he could no more heal her wounds than she could unlock his door. So she did other things towards a different kind of freedom.

She taught him to read and speak Nital. He taught her to speak Intsehli, though he couldn’t read or write it when he was taken away from his family by the weird light. She brought him books, and though they were always in bad shape, they opened doors to him. She taught him and, when his knowledge began to outstrip hers, he taught her.

He would never hurt her, not even when he was frustrated with trying to find ways for the knowledge to enter her head. He would neither cut her with his claws nor raise a fist against her. His anger was his to deal with, not her problem.

Besides, he had plenty of fangless ones to take it out on, marked with symbols that meant things even to those who could not read. Marks for murderer, for heretic, for adulterer… Ashivon was almost eleven, and he had seen all of them. They didn’t matter, not really. Sanga was the only one who mattered.

Today, Sanga was bleeding. Crying. Curled up by his window, where he could just see one foot, and defeated by what fate and cruelty had dealt her. The boys of her class had decided that Sanga was going to be their wife and, when they weren’t fighting each other to see who would have her, were trying to force their attentions on her.

Sanga said she didn’t like kissing. It was nothing like the stories and didn’t make unpleasant people more pleasant to either look at or spend time around. They were rough and some of them bit when they put their mouths on hers, and when she struggled and pushed away… They’d got mean. More than fists and feet. More than nails and teeth. This time, it was sticks and stones.

She didn’t want to be nice to them, so they decided they’d break all her bones and  _ make _ her be nice. There were stories about that. Horror tales that the girls whispered to each other in the night. Stories that suddenly made sense to her now that she’d experienced some of it.

Ashivon watched her foot, and the fence where she came through to see him, and murmured that none of this was her fault, no matter what they said. “You are safe,” he said. “They do much work finding you. This place secret, yes? You come stay? Others never--” he stopped, eyes growing wide. Two of them had found this forgotten, secluded spot. Both of them carrying stout sticks. Both of them dressed like Sanga in simple, long, dress-like robes. Both of them already angry and prepared to make trouble.

“Look out,” he said.

Sanga rose to her feet, and didn’t try to run. There was little enough space to run in and nowhere to run to. So she curled up her fists and yelled.

“You stay away from me!”

The boys didn’t listen. “We decided,” said the ringleader. “You’re our wife, so make nice or be  _ made _ nice.”

“No! I don’t want to play this game!”

The other one raised his stick. “We said make nice! You have to obey, you’re our wife!”

Ashivon had had enough. There was one thing all the fangless feared. He roared out a growl and reached out between the bars, scrabbling at the ground and stirring up dust. For effect, he yelled, “Sinner! Sinner blood!”

They screamed and ran. Good riddance to bad rubbish. Ashivon snorted in their general direction and then realised that he couldn’t see Sanga any longer. Had she run too?

A pale sleeve -spattered with dried blood- came into his view and the brown hand in it grasped his. Sanga flopped down in his view, face split with a smile and eyes wet with a different kind of tears. “Thank you,” she said. She was shaking, but she was no longer fearful. “I didn’t want them at all.” A smile and she crept closer to the bars. “Out of everyone in the whole Churchlands… You’re the only one I want to kiss.”

He said, “You don’t have to, and I won’t make you.”

“I know,” she said, reaching through the bars to run her fingers through his hair. “That’s why I want to.”

They pressed foreheads together, hands clasped and just sharing a simple closeness, for a timeless moment. While he was in it, he felt like it was forever. Afterwards… it had never and would never be long enough.

There was a hideous cracking noise, and Sanga sprang away from him. Grown fangless feet invaded their little space, and all Ashivon saw were beige trousers and a red vest, ushering Sanga away.

He would not see her again for another dozen years.

He would never forget her.

* * *

Sanga had little grasp of what happened, but she could guess. The boys told a Divine, and the Divine intervened with a team of three Protectors. One rushed Sanga away from the scene and bundled her into a cell far, far away from the orphanage dormitories. There was a bed and a potty, so they weren’t making her a criminal. Criminals were kept in rooms with iron bars and only straw on the floor.

On the other hand, there were no windows and only one iron lantern that was well out of her reach.

Sanga sat on the bed and wept. Whatever was going on, it was going to end badly. Somehow, she fell asleep on that bed and woke up when strong arms lifted her from its surface. There were arms banded about with tattoos, and a long red robe and cream sleeves and a headscarf, but Sanga couldn’t focus on their face.

“Whz’t?” Sanga managed.

“Come, child,” said a gentle voice as someone wrapped her over in rough, itchy wool. “You need a place of purity and peace.”

She was told she had had a lucky escape, that she should be grateful her pure soul had not been corrupted by the presence of a demon. She was told that, were she as much as a month older, the demon may well have torn her to shreds if he had got close enough. Sanga agreed that she did, indeed, have a lucky escape, but let the rest pass in silence.

It was the last kind voice she heard for a dozen years. The only kind arms to hold her until years and years later, when she held Ashivon in her arms and started trouble all over again. She spent twelve years in a distant nunnery, doing onerous tasks, doing tiresome tasks, copying holy writ until her elbows creaked… then they discovered she had a talent for battle and they started training her to be a Protector.

She had been so proud to earn the red vest, to be given the marks that made her capable of channeling the Divine. She had been so happy to be part of the greater family of the Church… to be an instrument of the Divine.

When she met Ashivon again, he remembered her… and got a fist to his face for saying her name. Teaching him to speak Nital hadn’t done anything but convince the Handlers and other Protectors that he was a trickier demon than the normal variety.

She still smuggled him real food, a welcome change from the raw flesh they fed him and -merciful Saint- he had  _ grown. _ He was a head taller than most men of the Church, and they were a head taller than her. Not that she had much of an opportunity to compare. It was safest to keep her distance from him.

Nevertheless, she could still teach.

Sanga took to practicing the Holy Hand Technique in the courtyard by his cage. Showing him moves he could use without channeling the Light. Moves he could use against sinners, so he could stay alive for one more day… for one more week… for one more year.

He was just as proud of himself as she was of him, even though he was spending a majority of his days killing the unworthy in the arena. There just… hadn’t been any way out. She believed that there was no other way to do things. She was a strong healer, and could at least keep him free of pain…

She knew something had gone bad when she saw the child. It was his black eye, more than the blood. Ashivon remembered her bruised and battered youth. He must have refused to hurt that little boy, and that was why his Handlers had beaten him senseless.

Everything that went wrong hinged on that small child.

Everything that went right did also.

Because of a child, Ashivon refused to slaughter.

Because of his refusal, the Handlers beat him bloody and used their power over him to kill that tiny murderer.

Because of Ashivon’s near-death state, Sanga channeled more of the Divine Light than she had ever used before, healing every last one of his wounds.

Because of the healing, Sanga was weak and Ashivon was vulnerable, and they both fell towards each other. They embraced.

Because they embraced, the Church struck out in anger. Setting them up to be executed, and summoning a new ‘demon’, a new Intseh child, to kill for them.

Because of the child, Ashivon fought so hard against his bonds that he bled.

Because of the blood and the upset, Sanga was able to wriggle free of her captors.

Because she was free, she was able to free Ashivon.

Because  _ he _ was free, their captors were dead.

Because of that, they were able to gather up the little Intseh child and escape through the stained glass image of the Saint herself.

Now the three of them were running. Running for their lives. Ashivon hadn’t let go of the kid and Sanga hadn’t let go of Ashivon. She couldn’t help but look back at the fastness on the hill, at the only home she had known for all of her life.

Her hand slipped from Ashivon’s and her pace slowed. She could go back. She could claim she was under a spell. She could return to the only feeling of family she had known.

She could return…

She could return and watch another Intseh get turned into a weapon. Be tortured. Be a weapon for the Church.

Sanga had been so proud to earn that red vest. Now she took it off. Used it briefly to scrub at the dried blood on her chest, and looking ahead at where Ashivon and the child had stopped, she tossed it aside like the garbage it was.

She knew where she belonged.

The Church was never her home. Ashivon was.

When she caught up with him, there were tears running down his face. He was just standing and staring and crying.

She stood by his side, ready for whatever he needed. To prove that point, Sanga put her hand back into his. Whatever they were running towards, they would be facing it together.


	3. From One Minute and Thirty Seconds

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This continues on from the end of One Minute, but changed where I made assumptions. So. Picking up where it left off…

Sanga had been so proud to earn that red vest. Now she took it off. Used it briefly to scrub at the dried blood on her chest, and looking ahead at where Ashivon and the child had stopped, she tossed it aside like the garbage it was.

She knew where she belonged.

The Church was never her home. Ashivon was.

When she caught up with him, there were tears running down his face. He was just standing and staring and crying.

How long had it been since he’d been under an unbroken sky? How many years had he looked out at the world -not even the natural world- with bars between him and everything else? How many years had he languished without a kind word or a gentle touch?

Sanga reached out to touch him kindly, to hold his hand, but looking to be sure of their grasp undid her. Her arms had a warrior’s tattoos, now. Tattoos like Carnius’. Carnius, who hit him. Carnius, who burned him as they washed him. Carnius, who beat him bloody.

Carnius… who controlled him and removed his choices. Who made him kill. Who made him eat vile things because that was what a demon apparently deserved. Carnius, who was a little _ too _ devout about punishing the guilty. A little _ too _ devoted to his work.

She might have friendly hands, but they were besmirched with marks that had given him pain.

She pulled away. Let him suffer his emotions on his own. Well, with one of his own kind to comfort him. Sanga walked ahead, rearranging her clothes to cover her shame now that she no longer had the vest to do that. Her soldiers tattoos may be a permanent reminder of his pain, but her soldiers training could help all three of them survive in the wilderness.

There were enemies of the Church out there. There were allies, too. There were, plausibly, places where the three of them would be safe. If there was a place where Ashivon and the new child could be safe, she’d trade her own safety for that.

Hell, she’d live in a cage for the rest of her life if it meant Ashivon could gain happiness and the Intseh child could go home.

Thinking of that, as she gathered things that could be useful, she found their new, confused, little friend. _ “Your name be?” _ she said in Intsehli.

The little boy frowned. Blinked at her, and said, _ “My name is Tselah. You talk real funny.” _

Sanga found a reason to laugh. It had been literal years since she’d spoken the language. Some of the grammar rules confounded her. _ “I practice more, yes? Learn good being.”_ Judging by the look on Tselah’s face, she might not be saying what she thought she was saying. Ah. _ That _ fallen branch would make an excellent quarterstaff. She made certain it wasn’t punky or hollow and tried a few moves to test its resilience…

_ Just _ as Ashivon came to join them with a concerned look on his features.

Damn it all! She was trying _ not _ to remind him of the hell they’d just escaped.

* * *

All this time, all these years… he’d been dreaming that his homelands were somewhere just out of sight. Behind a hill. On the other side of a wall. Somewhere close. He frequently dreamed of escape, despite the harsh realities of the days he spent as captive. Despite knowing they would keep him until he died of old age, he somehow kept dreaming that they would become kind. Sanga, somehow, elevated to the level where she wore all red, giving him a pardon and escorting him home. It was always a short journey, not even an entire day’s travel away.

He could almost believe this was a dream, too. Except his dreams had never come with stinging, aching, burning pain in lines across his back, neck and arms.

His dreams had shown him the mountainside village of his home… not this rolling vista of hills, forests, and rivers.

His dreams had never included a small and confused child, just like he had been once. Innocent and unknowing of the fate he had just escaped.

In his dreams, Sanga was always with him, but her hand had slipped from his and he dared not look back.

He couldn’t run any more. He’d reached the end of his endurance, there. He needed to catch his breath, but it kept lodging in his throat. Tears he could not afford to shed stung his eyes.

Ashivon had no idea where he was. No idea where he was going. No idea what to do with this child he just saved, and the sinking fear that Sanga - the only kind fangless he had known for his entire life - had left him alone.

“What’shappening?” said the child by his side. “Wherearewe?”

It was that question that broke him. He could barely understand it. He could barely understand _his own language_. He closed his eyes and let loose an ugly noise born from years of pain and fear. His dreams of home were just a dream. He was lost and afraid and didn’t know anything, didn’t have a plan, didn’t even know where to start.

When he was able to look again, Sanga was ahead of him, with the child trailing after.

His feet hurt as he moved to join them. His legs hurt from running. Every move with his arms or head pulled at his new injuries. Sanga couldn’t heal him, now. She’d had that ability taken from her with brutal efficiency.

_ He could still see the fangless one cut her as they grappled her. One arm around her and the other cutting her before the first arm was sure of its grip… _

“My name is Tselah,” said Tselah, talking to Sanga. “Youtalkrealfunny.”

Sanga’s laugh was a little listless. “Ibiscuitmore, yes? Learngoodbread.”

He found them just as she finished running the paces of a stick she found, and she looked at him like _ she _ had been the one about to remove his head from his shoulders, back in that room.

Her hand, the one not holding the staff, reached up and unfurled the sleeve over her tattoo.

“We… needing,” she said. “Fight.”

She had shed the red vest. Changed her belt to cover her chest, and the mark of Divinity on it. Sanga was ashamed of herself. Hating that which she had once been so proud of.

Ashivon wanted to tell her that she didn’t have to be ashamed, that he knew she had not been in charge, that she had less control than he did… but all of those words stuck in his throat.

He could say, _“We have to keep moving,”_ in Nital. Not in Intsehli.

He held Tselah’s hand. She held the boy’s other hand. They had no other direction to go but ‘away’. Away from the Church. Away from the lights of civilisation on the horizon. Away from hurt. Away....

Sanga used Tselah as a buffer between himself and her. Was she truly ashamed of herself? Or was she afraid of him? This entire mess was his fault. If he had just killed…

_ ...a small child who had been beaten -who had lashed out with whatever they could grab- and landed a lucky blow that was not, after all, as lucky as all that… _

_ ...a small child who was alone in the world with no-one to help them, just like Sanga had once been… _

Had she heard what his keepers were saying to each other? Had she listened to a single word they had said, or had she been focussed intensely on him? Had she only seen him bloody and beaten, dragged along the floor, and let rage drown her ears?

Even though he was halfway dead, he had heard them.

_ “Dunno if we should kill it, this is the first time it’s refused since early training.” _

_ “It’s damn near useless to us. Once they refuse, they’re dead.” _

_ “That’s a lot of effort for one failure. You could still control it all the same.” _

_ “You don’t understand,” _ Carnius had said, _ “The demon was fighting me. It was resisting control… it almost won.” _

_ “Well. We wash it and see if it dies, I guess. Let the Saint decide its fate.” _

That was when Sanga had intervened, deciding their fate for sure. On one hand, he was glad she did, glad they could touch… but… everything else. Would he much rather be dead, and have innocent little Tselah suffer what he had suffered?

No.

They kept walking, Sanga answering Tselah’s questions to her best ability. Ashivon corrected her grammar where he could, but otherwise kept quiet. He was hurt. He was tired. He was hungry, but that was nothing new. Something the Church had done to him kept him perpetually hungry.

Sanga foraged as she trotted to keep up, passing nuts and berries to Tselah and offering Ashivon half of her share. He refused food until his stomach did the growling for him, and nibbled cautiously on anything unfamiliar. Which was, all things considered, everything.

Anything was better than the vile mess they forced him to eat in his cell, but anything could make him sick through its strangeness.

He was glad of fresh, clean water, when they found it. The chance to drink his fill _ and _ wash his hands and face. It was a far cry from having water thrown into his face, so he relaxed with the change.

When he was done with that, Tselah and Sanga were playing around in the water. It wasn’t much deeper than her knees, but he hesitated. Would he be welcome?

“Come splash,” Sanga cheered. “Wash meat.”

Tselah was enjoying himself, ducking down and jumping up and laughing.

Ashivon slinked into the water, cautious. Guarded and wary. Just in case they decided to hate him. He tried not to flinch at Tselah’s exuberance.

“Hurts big tall,” she said. “Sanga falling tall.”

He appreciated that she avoided the Church’s command words. He was going to get his pants wet. Better than dying cold and alone in a Church cell.

“This sting is,” she warned. Sanga had unfurled part of her former belt and used the end to wash his injuries. She had a gentle touch. Tselah, wanting to help, was more involved with scooping water over his hurts.

Ashivon was far too used to staying still while the Church hurt him. He kept his eyes on the sunlight and on the water, all to remind him that he was not back there. Sanga’s sleeves were down and soaked when she reached out to help him up.

Tselah pounced, coming up with a fish. “Good eat?”

Ashivon had no idea.

Sanga inspected it and said, “Good eat.” She took it onto the shore to kill it quickly.

“Fish,” Tselah grabbed Ashivon’s hand to show him where they liked to lurk. “Pounceonthem!”

They liked the shadow he provided, and he was hungry. They would all need to eat before the end of the day. After a few false starts, he was flinging fish out of the water despite his aches. It was… it was almost fun.

By the time sunset rolled around, they had a veritable feast’s worth of fish roasting over fire. Tselah snuggled between him and Sanga, purring as he filled his belly. Sanga sat on Tselah’s other side, helping the child feel safe.

He understood. A child needed more reassurance than an adult, but…

Ashivon wanted a companionable arm around his shoulder, too.

He tried not to think about it. Tried to focus on what Tselah needed. He was a child, he needed reassurance. Ashivon was older and tougher than that.

...or so he wanted to tell himself.

* * *

Tselah didn’t know what was wrong with these two. They clearly loved each other, but they weren’t touching or anything. They were being kind… but it was the kind of nervous kindness that happened when one or both sides knew they had hurt the other and they didn’t know how to apologise. He _ really _ didn’t know what was wrong with Ashivon.

He was big and tough, so tough that he had been burning while ropes of light bound him and he hadn’t stopped calling out broken warnings to Tselah. He’d only shed one tear, and Tselah wasn’t certain if it was in relation to any pain he felt at all. He had run for ages, longer than any Intseh had run, all the while carrying Tselah like a baby. Tselah had objected after they’d got away from all that broken glass, but Ashivon had ignored him.

Ashivon was big and tough and he might have been mean, but it looked like the fangless he’d killed were going to kill him and he wasn’t mean to Sahnkah at all. It seemed like nothing could make him cry… until he looked out across the wilderness ahead of them.

Tselah -all unthinking- said, “That’s a long walk to get home.”

It was such an innocent phrase, but it had big, tough, possibly-mean Ashivon bawling like a child… _ and Sahnkah didn’t comfort him. _ She wanted to, Tselah could tell, but something stopped her and she looked hurt. Like… she disliked herself?

These people were weird.

Still, it was either them or the fangless who’d wanted to hurt them and these two were the only people who spoke a version of Intsehli he could easily understand. These were the only two who didn’t treat him as if he were some kind of infectious filth. Tselah was a smart kid. He’d noticed how the other fangless had cloth gloves on whenever they touched him. The other fangless kept their distance. These two touched him freely, companionably. Ashivon held him as if he were the most precious being in the world. Sahnkah gently guided him as she stumbled through her shaky version of Intsehli, and she always smiled for him. 

Sahnkah cooked too much food for three, but that didn’t seem to hurt, as Ashivon had empty spaces for anything they couldn’t eat. That seemed to concern Sahnkah, all the same, and she watched Ashivon like a hawk for the rest of the evening.

Tselah was the first to fall asleep, but the second to wake because Ashivon was having a nightmare. He was all curled up tight, shaking and holding his head. His breath came in rapid pants and his voice only uttered abbreviated grunts.

He sounded like he was in pain.

“Ashivon,” Sahnkah eased herself away from her careful embrace of Tselah, crawling over to where the big man lay, huddled up and quaking. “Ashivon? Ashivon…”

He didn’t seem aware of them. The noises he made had increasing notes of terror in them.

Sahnkah reached out and grasped his arm. “Ashivon.”

He startled and lashed out with a growl that made Tselah shriek. Teeth bared, claws slashing through the night air.

Time slowed to a crawl…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is where the video ends, folks! Don’t yell at me.


	4. From Two Minutes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Toasty released another thirty seconds of footage on her Patreon, so you know what that means

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again picking up from where the last one left off. Warnings for blood mention.

There had been blood. There had been screaming from all three of them. Sanga because she was cut with Ashivon’s claws. Tselah because he didn’t know why Ashivon lashed out. Ashivon because he realised in abject horror what he had done in a mere moment of terrified confusion.

Sanga wasn’t the happiest as she scooped clean, chilly river water over her injuries. Once, when they were children, Ashivon had told her that she should never blame herself when other people hurt her. She had innocently asked who else she could blame.

Now... 

Now it was hard to not blame herself. She had spent years in training. She had seen Battle Terror before, just as she had seen an abundance of Delirium Tremens. The absolute  _ last _ thing anyone should ever do with a sufferer of those having nightmares… was get in striking range when bringing them back to reality. Somehow, she had stupidly believed that Ashivon was somehow immune to years and years of torture at the hands of, and being forced to kill for, the Church.

She may not deserve her new scars, but she had certainly earned them.

Whenever she paused in her splashing, she could hear Ashivon’s ragged breathing. Sanga glanced over her shoulder to see that he was still keeping a tree between himself and her. Still hunched up and hating himself. An occasional broken sob carried through the immense gap between them. She wished she could heal his hurts, inside and out. She wished she could heal her own hurts, in a similar fashion.

Things would be so much  _ easier _ if she could still reach the light and song. She could have reached out and calmed his mind with a word,  _ but that could easily have been an unwelcome invasion… _ She could have sent soothing warmth into his body,  _ reminding him even worse of the terrors he had endured… _

She could have… If…

But those solutions were out of her reach.

Sanga had washed her wounds clean, and most of the blood had stopped pouring from her wounds. She’d need to bandage it to prevent infection. Sanga stared at the last trails of blood as they washed downstream. She didn’t have much. Her belt was already a breast-cover, concealing the Divinity tattoo on her chest. All she had left was her shirt.

Well, in desperation…

Teeth and strength made the fabric tear, and she tried to ignore Ashivon’s audible wincing.

Tselah, the little Intseh child was trying to talk to Ashivon. It seemed like her old friend had forgotten more Intsehli than she had.

* * *

“Don’t you talk?” said Tselah. “It’s okay to be scared of the furless, I know they’re scary. Their eyes look so dead… and they walk real funny. Do you know where we are? How far is it to Intseh lands? Are you hurt? Are you sick?”

Ashivon looked over his shoulder, still hunched up. He looked like someone had hurt his best friend in all the world. Maybe  _ he _ had hurt his best friend. Maybe he  _ had _ hurt his best friend.

“She didn’t mean to be scary,” said Tselah. “I know you don’t want to be scary. It’s going to be all right… You can make up.”

Ashivon finally looked at him. The vacant stare said it all. “I… am not… do not. I speak… small.”

Tselah had never been closer to crying since he came to this weird place than now. Sure, he’d been scared. Sure, he’d been confused. Sure… he had been hungry and weirded out and felt alone and lonely… But all this time, he thought he had someone to talk to. Even if it was someone who barely said anything at all.

He took a deep, steadying breath, and started over. When lost and in the company of kindly strangers, show them where you come from in terms anyone can understand.

“This is me,” he said, drawing in the dirt. “This is Papa. This is Dad. These are the mountains where our town is. This is the big salt water…”

“Mountains,” echoed Ashivon. “Mom…” he wasn’t looking at Tselah’s picture, not really. He was remembering things. Staring into a history that had been jogged out of his memory. The last word was a whisper, “...home…”

He startled and yelped as Sanga came back to them, shrinking in on himself as much as a big man  _ could _ shrink. He gripped his arms tightly, and looked away from Sanga.

Sanga, who had bound up her hurt arm with part of her top. Sanga, who seemed pleased with Tselah’s drawing.

“Bug hill,” she said, pointing to it. “Bug hill cloud bite! Ashivon, you biting yesterday long.” Excited, she touched his knee and pointed to the picture. “Bug hill,” and another gesture to distant mountains across the river and far away. “Bug hill! Us running bug hill!”

“Moun-tain,” corrected Tselah, finally understanding that Sanga was remembering a very little amount of Intsehli, and very poorly. “Mountain. We. Go. Mountain.”

“Yes! Yes, we go mountain. Yes.” She pointed again, nudging Ashivon in the direction she wanted to go. “We go mountain, seek-look Intseh.”

“Find Intseh’a.” It was going to be super annoying to teach grownups how to talk properly, but… what else was he going to do with his time?

* * *

It was a long walk, but at least they had a destination. Ashivon was careful, at least at first, to stay out of swiping range from Sanga. Such a distance was hard to maintain and, after half a day, he realised he wasn’t going to strike at her when he was completely awake.

She didn’t seem to bear him any ill will anyway.

Tselah was wont to bounce all over the place like a hyperactive flea. Even when told to be careful. Even when they ventured into the ruined city.

It couldn’t be his home. This place was a ruin long before he was born. Nevertheless, there was something achingly familiar about it all. It  _ could _ have been his home… It was almost like one, and then they would turn a corner and see an entire edifice reduced to nothing but rubble. The trees growing out of or through them cemented the idea that this place had been empty for years. Whatever had happened to empty it had been so complete that none had ever returned.

The only plus side to all this travel was that they were both getting better at Intsehli.

“I’m taller than you,” Tselah chirped, perched on top of gigantic stones that had once been incredible monoliths, but were now broken prisms.

Sanga said, “Taller is being, yes.” She still had trouble with grammar, and her accent rendered her almost unintelligible half the time, but there was definite improvement.

“You no fall,” said Ashivon. He wasn’t much better, but at least he had the grammar mostly correct. He remembered more words than he learned, and Tselah reminded him of more every day.

“I’m careful,” Tselah pouted. “I know how to land.” To demonstrate, he launched himself off his perch and, bouncing off of some other stones on the way, made his way to ground level.

Ashivon had to wonder how such a small being had so much energy. At least, he did in the mornings. The same Tselah that pounced at every moving creature in the mornings was also the one Ashivon had to carry in the afternoons. The furless had taught him to pace himself, whether he wanted to or not. Even so, Sanga had the energy to forage for their meals when he and Tselah both needed to rest.

He would perch, or lie in the shade, panting as he watched Sanga patrol through the area where they stopped. Gathering firewood. Harvesting edible plant matter or driving animals practically right into their claws. He knew damn well that neither he nor Tselah could chase them down in their exhausted state.

Sanga seemed to be relentless. Ashivon knew that the furless like her were unstoppable in comparison to him. He was faster than they were, but only for short periods of time. Sanga could out-walk him and Tselah both. When she hunted alone - and he had watched her do it - she began with stunning them with a rock and then just… followed them until they couldn’t run any more.

Today was not a hunting day. Sanga had more than enough to gather from the trees and bushes around them. Never stopping for longer than it took to drop off whatever burdened her at the time. She’d taught him and Tselah which ones could be devoured raw, and the two of them left her a diplomatic third while they waited for her to set up camp.

Sanga smiled for them both, always. Ashivon had to wonder how she could do that. He’d hurt her, and the bandage on her arm was permanent proof of that. There were scars under there that were his fault.

He’d hurt her, and she still smiled for him.

He hurt her, and she still wanted to touch him.

Again and again, his hand drifted towards hers. Again and again, either he or she shied away. They didn’t talk about it. They barely had the words to do so, but they could still try. They had talked about everything, once. When they were both little, they talked.

Once they were grown… They didn’t have words. They didn’t have time. They barely had minutes to share together.

She would look at the tattoos on her arm when she shied away from him.

He would look at his claws when he shied away from her.

Guilt hung over them both like a storm cloud. He could read it in her every movement. She could probably see it in him, too.

They didn’t talk about it.

Someone had to start.

They had days, now. They had all the time it could take to walk to those distant mountains.

His hurt to her was the most recent.

He could do this.

He could start to talk to her.

He had fought uncounted numbers of furless like her. He had killed uncounted numbers of furless like her. By that logic alone, he was brave and unstoppable.

He could talk to Sanga.

Tomorrow.

* * *

Mac found them in the early hours of the dawn, in the middle of a field of vegetables. Two Intseh and a human woman. They seemed desperate enough to eat those vegetables raw, and they didn’t exactly look like they were prepared for travel.

Poor things were hungry, for sure. She needed help with the harvest and this beat the hell out of going all the way to town to hire hands. So she cooked a big, heaping breakfast and laid it out on the bench outside her doors. Once that was done, she cleared her throat and said in Intsehli, “If you help me harvest the rest, I can trade you meals and some coin.”

The human woman was fast, snatching up a big stick and preparing for trouble. The big male Intseh coiled as if ready to strike. Only the child seemed relaxed about everything.  _ He _ waved. “Hello!”

“Hello,” she said, very carefully not making any sudden moves. The big male had scars on him. The human woman had a bandage on her arm and a torn top. “You can call me Mac. I don’t got a lot, but I can feed you and give you a little something to help you on your way.” She decided to add to the pot. “I got empty rooms and cold beds… you seem like the sort who’d be glad of a safe room to sleep in.”

The woman stood down first. “You… You hurt Intseh no?”

She didn’t speak great Intsehli. Mac switched to another trader tongue. One after another. “You speak Hathor? Understand Reitz? Know Nital?”

“Nital! I speak Nital. I’m learning Intsehli, but… not good.” She repeated her question. “You don’t want to hurt Intseh’a?”

Mac did her best not to laugh at them. “Oh no. We don’t get many of ‘em around here, but they are by far the strongest workers I ever met. Not much for endurance, but stronger than any I met.”

“Do you know where they are? Where they come from?”

Mac shrugged, “Somewhere over the mountains.” That seemed to disappoint them. “Don’t you know?”

“They… came to us… in strange circumstances.” That was all she said about it.

Mac fed them and tried conversation. They were certainly hungry souls. Hadn’t had a hot meal in a month or more. Definitely more in the case of the big fellow - Ashivon. He didn’t seem to know what spoons were for, and had an awkward way of holding them. He fell on every meal and hurt himself with the heat of it. The little one -Tselah- had to teach him how to blow on his food  _ and _ hold his spoon.

There was a story there, for sure. Sanga, the human with them, knew only some of it. There was a story in her tattoos, and her scars. There was a story in everything, but none of them wanted to tell it.

Big burly Ashivon was broken on the inside. For the first few mornings, during the season they stayed with her, she found him trembling on the floor. Sanga stopped her from waking him directly. She said it was Battle Terror… but he had never been in a war. He never carried himself like a soldier.

In his off moments, when he drifted away from the here and now, he carried himself like…

_ Like a savage animal. _

It was Tselah who told the most of the story. How there were humans who wore a symbol on their chests somehow transported him into the weirdest place in the world. How some of them had Ashivon tied up and how Sanga had been hurt before he got there. Ashivon had nightmares, frequent ones. He’d woken up from one and hurt Sanga and never meant it.

They liked each other. Tselah and Mac could tell, but they were too torn up about hurting each other that they dare not act on the love they shared.

They were very helpful, all three of them. Mac only regretted that she could only send them on their way with a few coins and some directions to a path to a mountain town that could  _ maybe _ help them find where all the Intseh were.

Mac wished them the best, but they had to move on. Wishes didn’t get the little one home to his true family.

* * *

There are a million ways to say,  _ I love you, _ and many of them don’t even need words. Mac told Sanga that every day, and the words kept cycling in her mind. Ashivon hadn’t struck out since that first night away from the Church. In fact, she and he had together devised a means to help him out of it when he did have his nightmares.

His keepers never spoke gently to him and they never used Intsehli once he had an understanding of simple Nital commands. Tselah was the one to supply the gentle Intsehli lullaby and, over the season they stayed with Mac, Sanga had it pretty much down pat.

Once conscious, she or Tselah would run him through his senses. Five things he saw, four things he could feel, three he could hear, two he could smell, and finally one taste. He invariably got back to himself before three, but he was grateful for the entire five.

He did all the heavy lifting. He provided a very tentative finger when she changed her bandages. He always made certain she and Tselah had enough to eat. He helped with the coaching in Intsehli, which they spoke more and more of as they travelled.

Mac’s directions told them how to skirt around a city that wasn’t friendly to Intseh, which was why they were taking the goat trail to a mountain town a lot further on.

Ashivon was lagging behind. Tselah had run out of energy hours ago, and now he was being carried as he caught his breath. Sanga looked over her shoulder to check. Ashivon was starting to flag, and she wasn’t even winded.

“Half a mile more,” she said. “We can look for a place to rest in half a mile.”

“Are those… Intseh miles… or Nital?”

Damn, he had her. Intseh miles were far shorter than Nital ones. “You can walk half a Nital mile,” she said. “I believe in you. You’re big and strong tough.”

“You try… carrying a baby… for two miles.”

Sanga took a knee. “Come on and ride my back, Tselah.” The Intseh had no word for ‘pig’ and no concept of ‘piggy back’, so she improvised.

He wasn’t that heavy, but it was the fact that he was only a little smaller than herself that made it an awkward load. At least he’d learned how to hold on without almost strangling her in the process.

The transfer process and getting up again with almost her own weight on her back gave Ashivon some of his wind and they plodded onwards for half a mile. There, they found a shady spot with a halfway decent creek and Sanga went looking for something ripe and ready to eat before they continued onwards.

Considering the general unfairness of things, Sanga didn’t want to settle until she was at least as winded as her Intseh counterparts. That would give them all plenty of time to eat and catch their breaths. Therefore, when the other two rested, Sanga went to every extreme she could. Shinning up trees to fetch fruit, foraging for nuts or edible leaves. Hunting small animals with a combination of luck and fast reflexes… though the hunting was usually reserved for evenings in much more open areas, when a fire was a welcome companion to the growing dark.

The skies were so  _ full _ out in the wilderness. It was easy to feel even smaller when looking out into the vast stretches of twinkling light and dark clouds between them. Sanga so often felt tiny when staring up at that infinity. Tiny, frail, and scared.

Though Ashivon had yet to touch her again, after that first mistake where he cut her in fear, he filled the empty hole of her fears with words. He would be close - not close enough to strike out, and explain that all those lights in the sky were suns so very, very far away. He’d explain that the noises in the impenetrable darkness were little creatures. He could, after all, see them.

They helped each other, day and night. They worked to make each other’s world better.

One day, not soon, they would be brave enough to actually use the words.

_ I love you. _

* * *

Ashivon had a hard time getting used to it. Mac was just one person and had never seen more than one Intseh at a time, and even there the experience was rare. This? This was an entire  _ city. _ Easily as enormous as the Church’s one. He hadn’t seen much of either, but he could see the differences even with that bare glimpse.

This place was so much  _ cleaner. _ There weren’t drifts of straw in the corners. There weren’t piles of weeds in the disparate gutters. The people were all healthy. Nobody sported bruises or rushed from place to place as if they were in fear for their lives. There was no… uniform. The people here wore what was practical, what was comfortable, or… or what suited them.

He was almost overwhelmed with the colour and variety.

He was certainly overwhelmed by people… ignoring him.

Ashivon was used to scaring people. He was used to people containing him. Restraining him. Forcing him into subjectivity.

Someone bumped into him, on those busy, clean streets. “Whoops. Sorry, big fella. Off in my own head.”

Ashivon almost fell over from the shock. He could almost see Carnius yelling at him raising a fist… He kept it in check, and managed, “No harm.” Half as a promise, and half as a realisation.

No harm.

There was no harm here.

Not from the people. Not from the way things were. Not from the society.

There was no fear of him or his kind.

No expectation of violence.

No atmosphere of terror.

No notes of oppression in any voice.

It was shocking to realise it.


	5. From Two Minutes, Thirty Seconds

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for implied/referenced homophobia
> 
> ...and picking up where I left off last time

Sanga may not have been great at the trader tongues, but she seemed to excel at haggling. She made good use of the coin they’d managed to acquire and a decent sense of trade, as well as a certain amount of sheer unbreakable determination.

Ashivon was in awe. All he had to do was stand there and loom a little if the shopkeepers were getting stroppy, and profit came into their hands. Profit, and far better clothes than the things that the Church forced upon both him and Tselah.

He literally couldn’t remember the last time he’d worn underwear. Tselah had to coach him a little in the purpose and donning thereof. It felt… strange. Somehow more secure. It made him a little bit more confident. It made him feel… like another person… instead of the Church’s wild animal.

Tselah chose pants and a coat with a thick, fur collar that almost swam on him. Ashivon… he was just so blown away with the choices available that he took three hours to narrow his selection down to one travel-ready outfit.

The shopkeeper said they didn’t see very many of his people in their town (they had seen other Intseh’a!) and didn’t have a lot that would fit him. Nevertheless, it was more choice than he could ever recall having in his life.

Given their plans to go over the mountains, the hock socks were a must, bound onto his legs with strips of leather and surprisingly warm for all that they left his toes out in the open. Ashivon couldn’t go near another pair of pants, no matter how well they were made, and chose a skirt that flared out and swished whenever he moved. The coat… almost didn’t fit. It was a tiny bit too tight, but Ashivon loved it. He had sleeves! And he had buttons that - with a little adjustment from the shopkeeper - he could work himself. Choose when he took it off or choose if he wore the over-shoulder shrug of a garment to keep himself warm.

For a moment, just a moment, he was happy. He spun about in his new clothes just for the feel of the motion. Then he saw the Humans waiting on the corner as Sanga and Tselah continued on their way.

One of them had a knife, and the kind of hatred-filled look that Ashivon had seen too many times within his cage in the Church. It reminded him too much of Carnius.

Ashivon hurried after Sanga. Reaching out for her hand…

...and remembered. Countless deaths. Countless kills. Countless looks of horror as his claws struck unguarded flesh, as they bled their last, breathed their last, on the sands in the arena…

...the look on Sanga’s face after his claws opened up her arm…

He pulled his hand back, ashamed of himself even as he hurried to join her. He didn’t deserve her touch. He didn’t deserve any of the things she was doing for him. That she had done for him.

He should have stayed in a cage. He was nothing more than a monster.

* * *

Ameqa was the one who found them. She was the most adventurous and a natural explorer. She had almost dragged Davi halfway all over everywhere and showed Davi more than enough of the entire world. She could speak so many languages that Davi would not be surprised if she actually spoke them all.

Davi’s introduction to them was, “Look, Love. More babies.”

More lost and lonely souls who had a limited-at-best knowledge of how to handle the world. Another small family of young ones to adopt, teach, and set on their path with surer footing. She and Ameqa had done so for so very many.

What an odd bunch of babies her wife had found for her  _ this _ time… One of the Church folk who was interestingly unafraid of the Intseh with her. Small and a little on the stout side, but the Church folk were always shorter than most. She wasn’t wearing any recognisable part of their uniform, but it had been years since she and Ameqa had been there. The Church folk didn’t like strangers.

As for the Intseh, there was a kid of maybe nine or ten, pure white patches on his ears and hands, and the typical fearlessness of the very small. Behind him was a fairly large fellow, about half an inch shorter than the average Intseh, but so muscular that it almost didn’t matter. He loomed without even intending to.

Meek, quiet, reserved… no. Davi found the word that described  _ this _ huge fellow. Broken. Broken and hurting and trying to heal himself without knowing how to begin, and -oh yes- this was why Ameqa had already adopted them. There was a look about the Church woman, too. Feigning confidence and surety in ways that Davi was  _ all _ too familiar with. She’d used too many of those techniques herself.

Davi listened patiently as this new baby -she went by Sanga- explained in Broken Trader Tongue that she wanted to buy passage to Devan-Intseh.

“I speak little Nital,” said Davi in Nital. “We know Intseh’a, we speak some Intsehli. They living here, most of them,” She pointed to some islands on the map. “What you say, love? Two week? Three?”

Ameqa’s eyes were sparkling. “Four or five, my sweet. We should travel carefully for the child.”

_ The actual one or all three? _ Davi thought, but didn’t say. She did have a worrying thought that made their reputation amongst the best. “You being in trouble? People hunt you?”

Sanga looked a little concerned. “We… never saw any?”

Ameqa said, in Intsehli,  _ “Tall and quiet one, do you fear us? Do you fear her?” _

He said,  _ “Uh. I… no fear Sanga. She is… friend.” _

It was the little one, Tselah, who said, “Ashivon was in a bad place for a long time. He’s forgotten a lot of words.”

Ameqa said, “Maybe six weeks.”

They had been married for over thirty years, and some things never changed. Ameqa just graduated from picking up orphans in the streets to guiding people from one place to another… physically, emotionally, and mentally.

Davi took their money. Less than they’d get from a more… established clientele, but it was possibly every last copper they had. She and Ameqa would be sneaking a few coins into their packs as the journey wended onwards. Some jobs you did for kindness’ sake and nothing else.

“You come stay with us while we get ready,” said Ameqa, right on cue. “We would love help around the house.”

Yep. Still the same woman she fell in love with.

* * *

Sanga had never felt so cold. She had heard tales of weather so cold that it didn’t rain, but the water fell in tiny crystals and just… stayed like that. Ms Ameqa called it ‘snow’, and it clung to the mountain in huge, thick blankets.

Sanga was grateful for Ms Dani’s advice to wear extra-thick underwear, and worried about Ashivon and Tselah… though they both seemed fascinated by the stuff.

Tselah bounced in and out of drifts of it, burrowing in and popping up with exuberant laughter, while Ashivon played with its mould-ability whenever their guides stopped to discuss the safest path ahead.

It took Sanga some time, since such things were unthinkable under the Divine Rule, but she saw it. These two were acting like a  _ married couple. _ A good match, too, not at all like some of the discordant homes she’d seen in service. It was in the way they walked with each other. Always in step. The way they touched. The way they embraced.

The dopey smile Ms Davi got when watching Ms Ameqa… or the way the veiled Ms Ameqa’s eyes would sparkle when she gazed in the direction of Ms Davi. They had had years of each other and it seemed to Sanga like the rest of their lives would not be time enough to be satisfied with that closeness.

* * *

Ashivon was an odd one, Davi had no doubts. He seemed as highly-strung as she was on her worst days, and constantly so. There were big worries lurking under that shaggy mop of hair. Big worries and a quick mind, too. He picked up a decent smattering of the trader tongue, and with the help of Tselah, Ameqa, and herself, he was re-learning Intsehli at a rapid pace.

He felt guilty about something. Something Sanga had forgiven him for, but something he had yet to forgive himself for. That was a boat he shared with Sanga, but… neither of them could see it, the young fools.

When Ameqa settled for storytelling by the campfire, Ashivon would slink off somewhere nearby and crane his neck looking at the sky. If he was searching for meaning, there, he hadn’t found it yet.

Davi sat close-but-not-too-close and tried to puzzle him out. Fit, true, but not used to the outdoors. Too much looking at the sky for that. Strong, but unfamiliar with tools. Trained… He and Sanga did some kind of exercises every morning and evening… but they weren’t soldiers, either of them. Most disturbing was the fact that he moved like… like a kid who expected a cuff more often than a kiss.

She and her wife had taken in too many children like that.

Helping one who just happened to be grown made the routine a little more tricky, but it could be done.

Davi took a breath, about to begin with explaining that, though people had hurt him, it was all right to talk about it now that he was far from the place where he’d been hurt.

“The sky’s flooding!”

That… was almost perfect Nital. Yet, the Church folks did  _ not _ associate with the Intsehli. Davi looked up. He saw the sky lights. “It is good,” she soothed. “It is the cold lights. My folk call them Sky Ribbons. Ameqa’s call them  _ aurora.” _

“Aurora,” he whispered.

“They only look pretty, near as I tell,” she said. “There is old tale about vain woman in stars who has her hair with many, many ribbons…” The story involved her getting dust, mud, and rain on her ribbons and casting them off into the sky. In the right circumstances, a child could laugh at it.

Ashivon absorbed it all with deathly seriousness. Like he feared he would be tested later.

She said, “I know Sanga not hurt you,” she began. “Those others at Church… they hurt you?”

Ashivon said, “Daily.” He seemed to think that wasn’t enough and added, “I am their monster.”

It took some prying out, from both Ashivon and Sanga, but… those Church lunatics were even worse than the last time she and Ameqa had gone near them. Rigid, authoritarian, virtue-obsessed… and involved in some kind of magical slavery.

Tselah told the clearest story of his abduction. There was a light, he said, and a sensation like being on a see-saw… and then he was naked in the middle of a circle of fangless strangers and they gave him strange pants and a sash and nothing else.

Ashivon, Tselah said, had been all tied up and tied down until Sanga cut the weird lights that held him down.

Ashivon and Sanga’s story was more of a relentless brutality. Those who followed the Divine were not allowed to kill. So the highest among them summoned demons -Intseh- to do the killing for them. Marked with magic that controlled the body and a portion of their mind, the captive Intseh had no choice but murder.

Kept in a cage. Treated like an animal. It was a miracle he’d made it out with this much balance to his spirit, all things considered.

* * *

Ameqa knew these three rescues were going to be harder work than normal. That Church Sanga had come from was bad news. A festering sore of Human society. All that mattered was power and performative devotion to the faith. She had seen it, twenty-some years ago, when she and her new wife Davi had been thrown out of the lands and had their belongings confiscated due to their ‘immoral behaviour’. She’d said then that the entire place would fester itself to death.

That fate was a long time coming, but it was plain to see how rotten it was getting in there.

Stealing children away from loving families was a sin.

Locking stolen children up in a cage was worse than a sin.

Forcing an intelligent being to kill for you… that had to be something beyond even that.

The Church was  _ vile. _

At least these babies were healing. Tselah, least harmed by the place, was almost normal. He had a healthy appetite for Davi’s cooking.

It was the other two who concerned her most. Broken, both of them, by the Church. Cracked and chipped in different ways. Both of them believed they had hurt the other, and could not forgive themselves for that wrong. Both of them were clearly, frustratingly, infuriatingly in love with each other that it hurt to watch.

They needed to learn about forgiving each other.

They needed to be shown how to love each other at closer range.

They needed to learn the multitudinous languages of love.

Talk. Touch. Teamwork…

She and Davi would have to teach by example.


	6. From Three Minutes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have been procrastinating on this bit HARD. Sorry for that folks. Anyways, it looks like Toasty wants to wrap RSN so let's get on with it.
> 
> Once again, continuing where we left off.

Meals brought them together. Therefore, they were the ideal time to teach the two grown babies how to  _ be _ together. Ameqa called the grownups in to the fire after she’d fed the small one. Tselah tended to provide derogatory commentary to adult displays of even the lightest affection. It was better for everyone that he was occupied with filling his stomach.

“One down, four to go, my love,” she singsonged.

“Camp’s secure. How’s my cooking?”

“Smells delicious.” Amequa handed over the ladle. “The little one loves it.”

Right on cue, Davi leaned in close for a good smoodge. They would only kiss in the privacy of a shared home, where none else could see her without her niqab. In the meantime, they had plenty of ways to share closeness, and had demonstrated them all.

If Sanga and Ashivin were learning anything, they were learning to deny their clear and obvious feelings for each other.

Sanga was more open, watching them -watching the world- for clues as to how she should act. Ashivon was more restrained, more cautious. More afraid of causing harm, certainly. Intseh were fairly impressive fighters, when they had to be. Ameqa had learned that Ashivon had been forced to fight for a majority of his life. Not fair on a baby. Especially not the baby he had been when the Church had made him begin.

That place was getting  _ beyond _ vile. If it didn’t implode, it was overdue for someone to wipe it off the map.

Ameqa chased those thoughts out of her head with the warm comfort of her wife, and peeked between her eyelashes at the grownup babies. Sanga was almost basking in their radiating warmth. Entertaining warm thoughts, no doubt. Ashivon was more openly curious, as if he had never known such affection was possible.

For a moment, just a moment, they drifted closer to each other. For a moment, they were perilously close to having a good smoodge themselves…

Then they realised it and cringed away. Damnit.

There was something in the way. A wall they had unwittingly built together out of boulders of guilt with shame as a mortar. Breaking that down was going to take more effort than just showing these babies how to smoodge.

They had their dinners five feet apart and not looking each other in the eye, whilst Ameqa, Davi, and Tselah pooled together on an insulating mat to share body heat as they ate. Nervy, nervous, and ashamed of themselves. That could get them dead, up in the snow.

_ “Big and strong. Ashivon. You come. Put your back to mine. Share the warm,” _ she said in Intsehli.

Davi had the same idea, though she spoke in Nital. “Hey, Sanga. Come and help me keep my feet warm. It must be breezy over there.”

Well, if nothing else went right, they could at least get these babies past being so desperately touch-starved.

* * *

It was a small ship. Enough to travel close to the shore. Judging by the holds, they did frequent trade runs up and down the coast. Yet this would be a short journey.

_ In a few hours, Tselah and Ashivon will be going home. _

Devan-Intseh was a dark blot close to the horizon. A handful of hours away by sail. The weather was clear, the tide was with them, and the wind was at their backs…

_ In a few hours, Tselah and Ashivon won’t need me. _

Sanga kept a smile on her face, chatting in Intsehli about what she’d learned from Ameqa and Davi.

“They’re not very open to humans,” she said, cushioning the blow. “I think there’s a few who live in the port, but the deeper you go, the less likely you are to even find  _ one. _ I don’t think we’ll be coming in on any festivals, but it’s near to harvest time, and fishermen always want someone to help gut and descale fish…” _ You won’t want for work, and by the time you’re done, you won’t even miss me. You’ll have your family back and you’ll fit right in, I know it… _ He might not even noticed she’d decided to stay with the wives. They were getting on and young muscle was always good help for wandering traders. Sanga knew she could never go back to the Church. If they didn’t hang her for a heretic, they’d certainly throw her in the arena with…

Oh sweet Divinity, no…

The Church would definitely have a new Intseh for their Executioner by now. Some frightened and bewildered child, far from home and expected to murder for the crowds’ entertainment.

Maybe she could get the wives to help her free that lost soul. And the next. And the next. Until they either ran out of Intseh to steal or… whatever thing they used to summon that suffering child.

Sanga was caught, though, in trying to ask. Both Ashivon and Tselah had picked up enough of the Trader Tongue  _ and _ Nital to understand anything Sanga said. As for using Intsehli… well. That was not an option.

The ocean spray stilled. Too soon. The sail furled. Too soon. They were coming into the docks at Devan-Intseh.

Too.

Soon.

Far too soon, Tselah laughed, “I’m home, I’m home!” and sprang off the boat, running across the boardwalk with all the gleeful abandon of a child who knew he was safe wherever he tread.

Ashivon, a beat behind, stumbled over his words in a panic. “Baby! Not safe! Stay close!” His words did nothing to halt Tselah, so he was forced to run after.

_ He wouldn’t even notice if I stayed here… _ Sanga picked up the pack that held everything they owned together. Most of it was spare clothing, and a few tools. If she left it on the docks, Ashivon would find it… and she could go with the wives… her new surrogate mothers…

Surrogate mothers who evidently had a better idea. She felt two motherly hands at her back and heard two taunting voices.

“Well?” they said in unison. “Go and catch him…”

Saint damn them, they were right. They knew. Ashivon hadn’t had a lifetime with Intseh’a. He’d had a lifetime in a cage. He’d need the one friend he’d known the longest. He’d need  _ her. _

They pushed her, and Sanga stumbled for a fraction of a second before leaping to the docks and running pell-mell after Ashivon.

The one person in the whole world whom she loved.


	7. From Three Minutes, Thirty Seconds

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I know the whole thing is published now, but I had to do all of it because reasons.
> 
> I may or may not be novelising the completed thing. I dunno. It all depends on how much of a struggle I have with Dibbles 3. Stay tuned.

Ashivon had known only pain and fear for so long that he knew of very little else. He feared pain, and feared causing it. When Tselah went running, he feared the child would come to harm and therefore ran after him without any other thought. He didn’t hear what Tselah had said, there was no room to understand any words. He couldn’t hear them for the rushing of air in his ears or the rushing of blood…

So much blood he’d spilled. No wonder a child ran away.

But a child had to be safe. A child had to be guarded.

A child he’d risked his life for, he couldn’t just abandon Tselah to whatever fate he was running towards.

There were buildings. A town. A town awake and bustling, completely unlike the sleeping city he and Sanga had escaped. He dared not glance back to see if she followed, just like that morning he had let her fingers slip from his  _ and they never returned… _ He had to keep Tselah safe. He had to protect the child from…

A city full of Intseh’a!

Ashivon slowed, losing Tselah in the crowd. So many different people. Blue-grey and white and black and brindle and… coming closer.

He should be glad. He should be happy. He should be feeling like he was  _ home. _ He should be speaking like them, acting like them, at  _ peace _ like them.

But all he could feel swelling in his heart was outright panic.

Too many!

Too many words!

Too many voices!

Too many people!

Ashivon had never had more than four people around him at any time, even when he was tied and transported around the halls of the Church. In the last city they had passed through, he had felt threatened and trapped and  _ terrified _ about both… and unsure to the point where he dared not seek the comfort of a friend.

_ Someone he’d thought was his friend. _

She had pulled away from him because he was a monster.

Monsters didn’t deserve to be happy. Monsters didn’t get to have family or friends or…

SOMETHING GRABBED HIM!

Ashivon flinched away, reverting to what he did best. What he had always done best. He bared his teeth and talons, snarling at the uncomprehending crowds of…

...of people like him.

People who were confused and trying to ask questions and he couldn’t understand anything and he was lost and scared and all alone…

He didn’t know what else to do but snarl and threaten and wait for a weapon…

None came.

Just the gentle touch of light and careful fingers. Just one voice that cut through the babble of Intsehli.

“Ashivon.”

He whirled, snarling until he saw…

...a pale hand free of claws. Wrapped in dark bracers that hid her tattoos. An arm outstretched that lead to a face full of concern. A face he knew well.

“Ashivon… See.  _ See.” _ Sanga spoke both Intsehli and Nital. Simple words he could understand.

Words came back to him. “See… Sanga. See… friend?”

She had her hand out, unafraid. “Sanga here. Friend here.”

His hand shook as he reached out.

_ The church’s monster and his bloodstained hand, reaching out for the trusting flesh he could destroy… Her hands, like so many others’ that had hurt him… _

No.

His hands, long since clean, reaching out for the comfort of a friend.

Fingers touched, so gently. Curled around each other. Fit together like pieces of something once broken… now… almost whole.


	8. From Four Minutes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's over! It's out there. Now join me in watching a singular animatic endlessly and reading subtext into it like the TRUE NERDS WE ARE...
> 
> (and then yell at me for getting SO much wrong lol)

Sanga was shaking too. Not because she was afraid of him, but because of what she had nearly lost. She smiled for him, and for the first time since they were children, he smiled back.

“See?” she said in Intsehli. “Sanga here. Friend here. Sanga… stay.” The tears flooded her eyes, and she couldn’t control them bursting forth down her cheeks. She put her hand to her mouth to stop a sob… but unsaid words flooded out in Nital.  _ “I’m so sorry, I thought you’d be better with your people I didn’t think, I didn’t want to hurt you, I never wanted to leave you alone, I’m sorry…” _ It all came out in a babble, she doubted he understood a word of it.

_ But his hands were warm and wrapped around hers, and he was pulling her closer. Closer, even, than they had been for the one embrace that changed their lives. _

His cheek was warm and soft against hers and she needed that. She needed to hold him close and cling tight and never let go. She was crying, and he had a warm wetness to his face as they pressed against each other.

By the Divine… By the Saint… By… by whatever forces of mercy and serendipity that lead them here, she had needed to hold him since…

_ Since they were young and didn’t know anything. Since they learned to talk to each other. Since she read to him through the bars of his cage. Since the Church took her away to learn better things. Since she came back and saw him once more, a captive monster who killed people. Since she taught him the way to fight and survive. Since he’d last held her hand in his, as they went crashing though the very image of the Saint, sending glass splinters of her all over the courtyard far below. Since her hand had slipped from his… _

“Ashivon here,” he said. “Friend here. Ashivon stay.”

“Of course they’re in trouble, it’s what they  _ do,” _ said a very familiar voice. Tselah!

Sanga looked up over Ashivon’s shoulder. Tselah was safe, and leading two adults towards them. Two adult Intseh’a who just had to be family.

_ Family. What a nice word. _

Sanga straightened a little, “Look. Ashivon. Look! We did it. We got him home.”

Ashivon looked, smiling again.  _ What a nice smile he could have… _ The beginnings of a laugh bubbled up out of him as the setting sun turned the sky and everything around to gold.

Words had never been so useful as the actions and touches they shared.

Sanga decided that her hands should seek out his. Perhaps for the rest of their lives.

The End

“...and then they kiss…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who's been putting up with my procrastination. Thanks especially to Toastyhat/Emptyfeet for making such DELICIOUS angst juice.
> 
> And thanks especially to you, for ploughing through all this bullshit to the very end. Bless you.
> 
> As always, check out internutter (dot) org for everything else I'm doing with what passes for my life, including every other project I'm working on and the multitude of pies I have my fingers in. I just don't firkin stop, folks.
> 
> Bless you all. May serendipity and synchronicity team up on y'all and get you the best possible life. ~mwah~!


End file.
